Perkins School for the Blind Incorporated

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In 1837, the principal of the Perkins Institute, Dr. Samuel Howe, made his first attempt to teach language to a deafblind child. His student was the gentle, delicate seven-year-old Laura Bridgman. He recorded his process in his journal.

"The first experiments were made by pasting upon several common articles, such as keys, spoons, knives, and the like, little paper labels on which the name of the article had been printed in raised letters…. So keen was the sense of touch in her tiny fingers that she immediately perceived that the crooked line in the word key, differed as much in form from the crooked lines in the word spoon, as one article differed from the other.

Next, similar labels, on the detached pieces of paper, were put into her hands, and she now observed that the raised letters on these labels resembled those pasted upon the articles. She showed her perception of this resemblance by placing the label with the word key upon the key, and the label spoon upon the spoon. A gentle pat of approval upon her head was reward enough; and she showed a desire to continue the exercise, though utterly unconscious of its purpose.

The same process was then repeated with a variety of articles in common use, and she learned to match the label attached to each one by a similar label selected from several on the table.

After continuing this exercise several days, with care not to weary her, a new step was taken. Articles were placed upon the table without having a label upon them, as a book, a knife, etc. Those loose printed labels, book, knife, etc., were placed upon the articles until she had felt them sufficiently, when they were taken off, and mingled in a heap. She narrowly watched the process by feeling her teacher's hands, and soon learned to imitate it by finding out the label for book, and placing it upon the volume; the same with the knife, etc...

The next step was to give a knowledge of the component parts of the complex sign, book, for instance. This was done by cutting up the label into four parts, each part having one letter upon it. These were first arranged in order, b-o-o-k, until she had learned it, then mingled up together, then re-arranged, she feeling her teacher's hand all the time, and eager to begin and try to solve a new step in this strange puzzle.

After several weeks of this, Laura experienced what Howe called the "supreme moment."

The poor child had sat in mute amazement, and patiently imitated everything her teacher did; but now the truth began to flash upon her, her intellect began to work, she perceived that here was a way by which she could herself make up a sign of anything that was in her own mind, and show it to another mind, and at once her countenance lighted up with a human expression; … I could almost fix upon the moment when this truth dawned upon her mind, and spread its light to her countenance; I saw that the great obstacle was overcome,…

Quoted in "The Education of Laura Bridgman," by Samuel Gridley Howe, reprinted in Annual Reports of Perkins Institution, 1837-1974.

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Article: Boston's Puritan past and non-profits

Comment by Bill Walczak | 03/02/2005

Boston: Home of the Non-Profit Sector
All around the world, people today know Boston for it's social innovation, as they knew it for capital finance and trade 100 years ago, and have known it for more than a hundred years for education and health. It is a world capital of non-profit organizations, called non-governmental-organizations, or NGOs, in other countries. Foreign leaders visit Boston in great numbers to see how Boston has used its NGOs to transform distressed neighborhoods, create new ways to educate, provide services, and build new communities. Boston is filled with non-profits, and I marvel at the way in which the non-profits have filled so many voids in Boston. From creating or renovating thousands of units of housing to creating health care and social services for hundreds of thousands of people, the non-profits have literally and figuratively saved low and moderate income communities across Boston and across the nation. But beyond the social impact of these organizations, the actions of these non-profits has created an entire economy. That economy is indeed robust. 26% of all jobs in metropolitan Boston are in the non-profit sector, which is a two and a half billion dollar economy in metro-Boston. When Codman Square and Dorchester House Health Centers studied the non-profits of just Dorchester and Mattapan, we found it to be a $315 million economy, employing nearly 6,000 people. Indeed, when you look at most neighborhoods in Boston, youýll find that it is a non-profit, usually a health center, that is the largest employer in that neighborhood, and the major anchor for the areaýs business district. In central Dorchester, the Codman Square Health Center, where I work, employs 275 people in nearly 100,000 square feet of commercial space, with a budget of over $15 million, and is responsible for more than 16,000 people per month coming into the nearly fully occupied business district, which into the 1990s was half-abandoned. A couple of years ago, I was part of a group visiting a Globe editorial writer to talk about our findings in our study of Dorchester and Mattapan non-profits, and the writer asked why Bostonýs non-profits were so numerous. My only thought was that maybe John Winthropýs vision of Boston as a "City Upon A Hillý has had more staying power than even he would have imagined. At the time I had no idea just how prescient I was, for I had stumbled upon the truth.
It was Puritan New England, far more than any other area of America, which preached the importance of doing good as its dogma. And this command found its way into the lives and minds of colonial Bostonians, where people like Benjamin Franklin grew up understanding that making things better was part of life's expectations. In his autobiography, Ben talks of his fatherýs small library, which contained a few books by Boston minister Cotton Mather, including, ýanother of Dr. Matherýs, called Essays to do Good, which perhaps gave me a turn of thinking that had an influence on some of the principal future events of my life.ý
To truly understand the influence of Essays to do Good in the life of Franklin, and in colonial Boston, where an immigrant worker, a ýtallow chandler,ý like Ben's father Josiah Franklin would have it in his small library, you should read Walter Isaacsonýs biography of Ben Franklin, which is filled with example after example of how the Puritan mindset created what deToqueville marveled at a century later, "These Americans are a peculiar people. If, in a local community, a citizen becomes aware of a human need that is not being met, he thereupon discusses the situation with his neighbors. Suddenly, a committee comes into existence. The committee thereupon begins to operate on behalf of the need and a new community function is established. It is like watching a miracle, because these citizens perform this act without a single reference to any bureaucracy or any official agency." Coming up to the present day, Boston developed and perfected the concept of the public-private partnership - - government working with non-profits to improve neighborhoods.
During the "Celebrate Boston!" weeks immediately preceding last year's Democratic Convention, there was a celebration of social innovation in Boston - - all of the firsts and impressive accomplishments of the non-profit sector. Boston should also celebrate social innovation as a Boston invention, one that has spread throughout our country and the world, creating mechanisms for people in communities to fix their own problems and envision a better life for themselves and their communities. Money magazine last year noted that the nonprofit sector is now the third largest part of the national economy, surpassing banking, technology, even the federal government, and that it employs one of every 12 Americans in a $785 billion dollar economy. And it all started here in Boston.

Article: Boston's Puritan past and non-profits

Comment by because | 08/25/2005

The Puritan idea of NGO was quite different from today's. For one, individuals, usually wealthy, took the place of these organizations. If they didn't give of their funds to support schools, churchs, bonds for war, and poorhouses, the Court, citing greedy tendencies, would fine the individual and take the money through legal channels. Also, the Puritan was motivated with a more sublime motive than performing a do-good deed when serving the public: He was loving God and obeying the commandment to extend charity to individuals.

Article: Boston's Puritan past and non-profits

Comment by Bill Walczak | 08/26/2005

I don't think my article is inconsistent with what the writer has pointed out. People who work in the non-profit sector, in my view, are motivated by the same desire to do good and help their fellow persons as the Puritans (indeed, that's my point - the doing good continues). Maybe the source of the funding is different (individual, foundation and tax dollars vs. individual contributions), and perhaps the purpose for which acts of doing good are performed are different (getting into heaven vs. life satisfaction or getting into heaven for some), but in both cases, the acts are performed for good reasons, and I submit that the reason Boston has so many non-profits as the entities through which good acts are performed is because the initial settlers were Puritans. My disagreement is that I believe that a person doing good for secular reasons does not make the acts less sublime than a person doing good acts for religious reasons.

Article: Boston's Puritan past and non-profits

Comment by Walden Reader | 03/02/2006

Interesting tidbit to add in regards to the Perkins School - years before he moved to Walden Pond and soon after his brother John had passed away, Henry David Thoreau applied to teach at the Perkins School. A transcribed copy of his application letter is below...
Concord, March 9th, 1841
(???),
I observed in your paper of March 5th an advertisement for an assistant teacher in a Public Institution (????). As I expect to be released from my engagement here in a fortnight, I should be glad to hear further if the above vacancy is not already filled.
I was graduated at Cambridge in ý37 previous to which date I had some experience in schoolkeeping and have since been constantly engaged as an instructor- for the first year as principal of the Academy here and for the last two as superintendent of the Classical department alont.
I refer you to Samuel (???), Reverend R.W. Emerson or Dr. Josiah Bartlett of this town or to Pres. Quincy of Harvard University.
Yours respectfully,
Henry D. Thoreau

America's unique system of philanthropy was begun by wealthy merchants and industrialists in Massachusetts who made their money in slavery and textiles.
_____________________________________________
Biography:
Thomas Handasyd Perkins (1764-1854) was a successful China trade merchant, a philanthropist, an important Boston Federalist, a leader in the cultural life of Boston, and the founding patron of the world-renowned Perkins School for the Blind. He was a faithful member of the congregation of the Federal Street Church during the ministries of Jeremy Belknap, William Ellery Channing, and Ezra Stiles Gannett.
Born in Boston, Thomas grew up during the American Revolution. When he was twelve he was in the crowd which first heard the Declaration of Independence read to the citizens of Boston. His parents, James Perkins and Elizabeth Peck, had ten children in eighteen years. James ran a store that sold such household items as cheese, tea, sugar, and wine. When he died at forty in 1773, his wife took over the the store. Under her management it prospered as never before.
The family originally planned to send Thomas to Harvard, but he had no interest in a college education. In 1779 he worked for a year in a retail store run by William Dall and then moved to the larger mercantile firm of W. & J. Shattuck. When he turned 21 he became legally entitled to a small bequest that had been left to him by his grandfather Peck. With it he left Boston for Cape Francis in Saint-Domingue (later Haiti) to seek his worldly fortune.
His brother James was already engaged in business at Cape Francis as a commission agent for several North American merchants. Together with a friend in 1786 they founded their own commission firm, Perkins, Burling & Perkins. They traded profitably in slaves, flour, horses, and dried fish. This was the first of a long series of business partnerships in which the two Perkins brothers were always the ones who ran the business. The Perkins credo, as Thomas wrote James, was: "Now is the heyday of life, let us improve it, and when the inclination and ability for exertion is over, let us have it in our power to retire from the bustle of the world and enjoy the fruits of our labour."
In 1788 Perkins was married to Sally Elliot at the Federal Street Church by Jeremy Belknap. Sally's father ran a tobacconist shop near the Perkins house. While Thomas spent most of the first year of their marriage at Cape Francis, Sally lived in their new Boston home. They were married over sixty years and had eleven children. After the birth of their first child, Thomas returned to Boston and formed a partnership with James Magee, an uncle by marriage. T. H. Perkins & James Magee sold wines, spirits, sherry, iron, flour, lumber, and oil on commission for others. Thomas's place in the West Indies was taken over by his brother Samuel.
In 1785 China opened the port of Canton to foreign businesses. Perkins was one of the first Boston merchants to engage in this risky yet profitable trade. In 1789 he sailed on the Astrea to Canton. Its cargo included ginseng, cheese, lard, wine, and iron. On the trip back it carried tea and cotton cloth. As the trade developed, his ships went first to the coast of the Pacific Northwest to trade for furs from the native American Indians, and then to China to exchange the skins for Chinese goods. The China trade made Perkins a millionaire.
The Perkins's Saint-Domingue business collapsed as a result of the revolution which began there in 1791. They recouped, however, when in 1794 Thomas traveled to London and Paris and arranged to use his neutral vessels to carry on the trade between France and the West Indies. A friend later wrote him from London that many merchants and bankers there considered him "rather a clever fellow."
Early in his career Perkins began to take an active part in public affairs. He joined the Federalists, the party of Washington and Hamilton and the one that reflected his conservative views. On several occasions he was elected to the Massachusetts House and Senate. He was also one of the original members of the reorganized Independent Corps of Cadets, the local militia, rising in rank by 1799 to lieutenant colonel. He was afterwards called Colonel Perkins.
The Perkins brothers were busy merchants during the closing years of the eighteenth century and the first decades of the new one. They had three basic business strategies: short speculations in the West Indies, longer ones in Europe, and major investments in the growing China market. They acquired a fleet of their own ships. In 1803 they opened a branch office of the firm in Canton, giving them better access to and allowing more profitable business relations with the local Chinese merchants.
Although President Thomas Jefferson's Embargo of 1807 lasted fifteen months, it did little harm to J. & T. H. Perkins. It enabled them to get rid of their local stock and to buy at their Canton office new goods at prices lower than usual. When the first batch of these items reached New York after the embargo was lifted the Perkins firm realized a profit of $100,000. Then the War of 1812 for a time nearly brought their trading business to a standstill. Fortunately, when the war ended they had a well-laden ship on its way home from Canton. An important key to the Perkins success had always been their ability to make the right decisions at the right time.
T.H.P., as he was often called, was by 1810 also engaged in other business ventures. He was, for example, the driving force behind the Monkton Iron Company in Vermont. At the same time he participated in Andrew Craigie's land and bridge speculations in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
In 1815 the brothers, still retaining their keen spirit of business adventure, opened a Mediterranean office to buy Turkish opium for resale in China. Neither were concerned with the morality of selling slaves or opium. All that mattered to them was that what they traded should make money for the firm. Thomas's minister, William Ellery Channing, did not appreciate merchants much, even those in his congregation, and later condemned the business of slavery. "I see not how men absorbed in business," Channing wrote in 1834, "can accomplish the great end of life. That end is to strengthen, to extend and keep in invigorating action, the principles of love to God and to our fellow creatures."
James Perkins died in 1822. In one sense that was the end of the firm. But Colonel Thomas Perkins never fully retired. Even after much of the business was turned over to younger members of his family, among them his great-nephew John Murray Forbes, he continued to dream up new ways to make money. In 1825 Perkins was instrumental in encouraging the purchase of a granite quarry in Quincy, Massachusetts and then, to move the granite, in developing one of the first horse-drawn railways in America, the Granite Railway. The granite was needed for the Bunker Hill monument. After he had discovered the beauty and allure of Nahant, he constructed and oversaw the first hotel there for wealthy summer visitors. Later he invested in building the famous Tremont House, the most modern hotel yet seen in Boston. His resources and his business experience fostered the pioneering cotton mills in Newton and Lowell, Massachusetts.
Perkins always loved the outdoors and nature and enjoyed gardening, hunting, fishing, and traveling. During his lifetime he made ten trips to England and the continent, as much for pleasure as for business. He also enjoyed traveling about America. In 1837, when he was 73, with a grandson he visited 23 states in 110 days. During his last years he spent several summers at Saratoga more for the company of its "fashionable people" than for its waters. Besides sightseeing he enjoyed the theater and visiting art museums. He knew many of the artists of his time and regularly purchased their work.
The "merchant prince" was just as generous to many causes and institutions that he felt were important elements of a good society. He, and especially his brother James, were long associated with the Boston Athenaeum. The Colonel not only supported it financially but also served as president, 1830-1832. He was one of the founders of the Massachusetts General Hospital. A member of the Monument Association, he helped to pay for the Bunker Hill Monument and the Washington Monument. His most notable patronage, however, was of the celebrated Perkins School for the Blind. Impressed by the work with the blind of Samuel Gridley Howe and interested, as he wrote, in "the fate of this class of the human family," he offered his Pearl Street home as the school's first residence. As the school quickly grew under Howe's able leadership and care, in 1839 Perkins sold the house and gave the proceeds to the school to enable them to purchase and adapt a hotel building in South Boston.
Perkins died quietly at his home at the start of his eighty-ninth year. His funeral was held at the Federal Street Church. Out of respect the state legislature adjourned so its members could attend the service. The governor, the officers of the Boston Athenaeum, and Dr. Howe from the Perkins Institute for the Blind were present. The choir was made up of children from the Institute. It was a gathering, noted the Daily Evening Traveller, of "the intellectual and the wealthy of the city." Perkins's remains were buried in the family plot at Mt. Auburn Cemetery.
The bulk of the Perkins papers are at the Massachusetts Historical Society. Additional material can also be found there in the collections of his associates and friends. Baker Library of the Harvard Business School and the Schlesinger Library at Harvard also have useful items. The definitive biography is Carl Seaburg and Stanley Paterson, Merchant Prince of Boston: Colonel T. H. Perkins, 1764-1854 (1971). See also Thomas G. Cary, Memoir of T. H. Perkins (1856). There is a biographical entry by Peter C. Holloran in American National Biography (1999).
Article by Alan Seaburg
http://www.uua.org/uuhs/duub/articles/thomasperkins.html

Perkins - Slavery - Money - Good Deeds

Comment by kkn_blonde | 04/10/2008

WOW LOVE THIS IT IS SO MYSPACE MATERIAL
-------------------------
KENDRALA NORTON

Could you please correct an error in the audio script? The correct information is in the written text: "For the first time, blind and deafblind American children could attend a school ...." But in the audio it states, "For the first time, deaf and deafblind American children could attend a school ...." The word "deaf" was incorrectly substituted for "blind."
Thank you!
Jan Seymour-Ford
Perkins Research Librarian

I receive and read these posts every day, and share
some of them on Facebook.
When NPS, DOI, created a Preservation Brief on Accessibility to Historic Buildings for People with Disabilities, it was made clear through the legislation, prompted by courtesy and respect, that we would NOT say "THE HANDICAPPED," or
"THE BLIND,"
"THE DEAF" (I have hearing loss...)
e.g. to categorize people, label. I think "we" do this all the time to cut through really communicating with each other. Thanks for listening.
Kay

Thank God!

Comment by Zinc | 03/02/2011

Thank God for the Perkins school and all similar such schools. And thank God for those who made it possible!

Thank God!

Comment by doedoe | 03/02/2011

Amen.

Typos

Comment by EdTr | 03/03/2013

"she was relied on rote learning" - "she relied..." "deaf-blindness" - "deafblindness" (hyphenated form is inconsistent with "deafblind" used throughout the article)
"students in the U.S.." - lose the second period

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On this day in 1829, the New England Asylum for the Blind was incorporated in Boston. The institution opened with six students, but within six years, it had ten times that number. For the first time, blind and deafblind American children could attend a school that would teach them reading, writing, and mathematics. Students were taught to use their sense of touch to compensate for their lack of sight. Re-named the Perkins Institute for the Blind, in honor of an early benefactor, the school grew steadily through the nineteenth century until it became the world-renowned institution it is today. The school's most famous graduate is Helen Keller, who arrived there with her teacher Annie Sullivan in 1888.

In 1880, it created a library that became the largest in the world on non-medical aspects of blindness and deaf-blindness.

Antebellum Boston was a cauldron of social, intellectual, and spiritual reform. Hundreds of Bostonians were involved in one or more causes — abolition, child labor, prison reform, care for the mentally ill, temperance, education, diet, and health. So when Dr. John Dix Fisher visited the world's first school for blind children during a trip to Paris, he felt confident that his native Boston was the place to introduce such a novel idea to America.

The new nation had old ideas about what blind and deafblind children could learn — perhaps a few hand skills, like broommaking, that might keep them busy and earn them a pittance. Even basic reading and arithmetic were considered to be beyond the reach of most people without sight.

In Paris, Fisher saw blind students reading from raised-type books and learning mathematics, geography, languages, and music in addition to the manual arts. Inspired, he returned to Boston and spent the next three years persuading men of means and conscience to help fund an American version of the Paris school.

On an icy day in February of 1829, a number of prominent Boston men gathered in the Boston Exchange Coffee House to sign papers of incorporation for the New England Asylum for the Blind. When the legislature approved the incorporation three weeks later, it also appropriated $6,000. This early public-private partnership proved to be critical to the growth of the new institution.

And grow it did. In 1831, Fisher recruited the dynamic and charismatic Samuel Gridley Howe to run the school. Trained as a physician, Howe was a hero of the Greek War for Independence. He was ideally suited to his new mission. He began by touring Europe, observing—and often rejecting — many approaches to teaching the blind.

"He assumed that the State owed to the blind an education. . . . And he had faith that this education, if properly given, would make the same return to the State that its common education makes . . ."

In 1832 he came home convinced that blind children should be given the same opportunities, experiences and hopes as sighted children. His wife, Julia Ward Howe, later remarked, "He assumed that the State owed to the blind an education. . . . And he had faith that this education, if properly given, would make the same return to the State that its common education makes, by enabling an important class of citizens to aspire to the rewards of industry and the dignity of independence."

Howe was idealistic, resourceful, and ambitious. He opened the first school in his father's house in 1832 with only six students. By 1838, the school had more than 60 students and had moved to a mansion owned by one of its trustees, Thomas Perkins. In 1839 the Perkins home was sold. The proceeds allowed the school to move to a larger building in South Boston. In honor of its benefactor, it was renamed the Perkins Institute for the Blind.

Samuel Howe trained teachers to use raised-type books he brought from Europe, and texts, maps, and diagrams that he created himself out of pasteboard, gummed twine, and pins. He devised ways students could use their sense of touch to compensate for their lack of sight. Blocks of different sizes helped communicate mathematical proportions; pasted string allowed students to trace out and learn geometric figures. Geography was taught using a large globe with raised features.

Howe even developed a special printing department to produce books with embossed Roman letters, which soon became known as Boston Line Type. His efforts attracted the attention of Charles Dickens, who visited the school and wrote about it in his book, American Notes. Dickens had the school print and distribute 250 copies of his book The Old Curiosity Shop in Boston Line Type.

Blocks of different sizes helped communicate mathematical proportions; pasted string allowed students to trace out and learn geometric figures.

Howe's greatest personal challenge — and greatest triumph — came in the form of a petite and delicate seven-year-old girl named Laura Bridgman. A life-threatening case of scarlet fever had left her both deaf and blind. Like other deafblind children, she was generally considered ineducable. Samuel Howe was determined to reach the girl and brought her to Perkins.

Howe believed that he could penetrate Laura's world by using her tactile senses to teach her individual letters. He gradually connected letters to words and words to objects. The child was eager to master the new puzzle; she relied on rote learning of the patterns to spell out the words for objects such as fork, spoon, key, and book.

After about two months of work, Laura suddenly realized the significance of what she was doing. Howe had broken through her isolation. The little girl proved to have an insatiable desire to learn and to communicate; she was soon reading books in raised type, fingerspelling words, and eventually writing with a board on grooved paper.

Howe's success with Laura Bridgman made the educator and the school famous around the world. The Perkins Institute (later renamed the Perkins School) was one of the few places in the world that offered hope to deafblind students.

Keller eventually went on to graduate from Radcliffe College and to become one of the world's most eloquent advocates for the disabled.

The most famous was Helen Keller. Keller had been rendered deaf, blind and mute by a severe fever at the age of 19 months. When her mother read about Perkins in Dickens' Notes on America, she contacted the school. Howe's son-in-law had taken over following Howe's death in 1876. He sent a recent Perkins graduate, the formerly blind Annie Sullivan, to work with Helen at her home in Alabama.

After Annie's famous breakthrough in teaching Helen fingerspelling, the pair moved to Perkins and lived there for the next six years. Keller eventually went on to graduate from Radcliffe College and to become one of the world's most eloquent advocates for the disabled.

The Perkins School has a long tradition of embracing innovation. In 1880, it created a library that became the largest in the world on non-medical aspects of blindness and deaf-blindness. Seven years later it opened the first kindergarten for blind students in the U.S..

In 1912, with demand for its programs growing, Perkins moved to a 38-acre campus on the banks of the Charles River in Watertown. There, in 1951, the school introduced the first Perkins Brailler, which allowed student to type in Braille text; over the next 30 years, over 100,000 Brailler machines were produced and distributed across the country.

As the number of blind students educated in public schools has grown, the number of students in residence at Perkins has declined. Always evolving, Perkins expanded its mission to serve sighted children with other disabilities, including deafness, mental retardation, and cerebral palsy. In the 1990s, Perkins began to offer services for visually impaired elders — the fastest-growing blind population. The Braille and Talking Book Library circulates 50,000 recorded titles and 16,000 Braille books.

In 2004, to commemorate its 175th anniversary, the school opened the Perkins Museum, "a multi-sensory journey through the history of blind and deafblind education over the last 200 years."

Mass Moments is a project of Mass Humanities, whose mission is to support programs that use history, literature, philosophy, and the other humanities disciplines to enhance and improve civic life throughout the Commonwealth.